Spore: Creature Creator

Spore
Spore is an upcoming game from the creator of SimCity and the Sims. It's basically an evolution game where you take some little creature and "evolve" it until it controls a galactic empire. This is a terrible way of describing the game, but I don't feel like writing a lot.

The thing I want to talk about is the Creature Creator which they've released a demo of. Although the parts are limited, people can make an absurd number of different creatures quite easily and they are well animated. I wanted to share some of my favorite creations.


This is my first creature, Fibber. He once caught a fish that was THIS BIG!


This is Lightfoot dancing with one of its offspring. The creator automatically generates baby versions of the creatures.


Slouchy, the laziest creature I created.


Sneaky, the most devious animal ever. I bet you thought it was just a harmless little bird.


Spindly has some issues with his legs.


This is what happened when I told Spindly to sit.


I have no idea what happened here.

First PetaFLOPS

Top 500

The first PetaFLOPS computer has made it onto the Top 500 list, ending the 3 year reign of BlueGene as the fasting computer. In fact, the average speed of the top 10 increased by 116%, the second fastest increase since the list started in 1993. What's even more impressive is that the total FLOPS computed by the top 500 increased by nearly 68%, the highest increase ever. Three hundred of the computers that were on the list last November are no longer on the list, unless they were upgraded.

The new top computer, Roadrunner, can compute more FLOPS (floating-point integers per second) than the the entire Top 500 list from June 2004.

Who Cares?

Barack Obama
I was reading the SA forums today, and some guy posted pictures of Obama helping out with flood relief. This immediately reminded me of the recent South Korean presidential election. About a week before the vote, there was an oil spill off the coast of Korea. The candidates were falling over each other to be the first to help the clean-up. So I decided to see was McCain was doing in response to the recent floods.

John McCain
Apparently McCain felt the flood was only worth a two-sentence statement. I'm starting to think Republicans hate flood victims.

Sure, Obama could just be doing this as a publicity stunt, but there still a big difference between helping out with dubious motives and doing, literally, the least you could do.

Great things are happening in Sweden

I think I obsess about Sweden a bit too much, but I've noticed something recently, all the musicians I've become interested in the past month are all Swedish. There's just something about the kind of music coming out of Sweden right now to be fantastic.

Firefox AK vs. LAID
I actually saw Firefox AK perform when I was in Uppsala. It was great concert and I wanted to buy her CD then, but no one could tell me where or if they were selling it there. On a different note, I don't understand the whole "vs." thing when electronica groups collaborate.

I ARE DROID
These guys kind of remind me of Muse.

Maia Hirasawa
This singer's voice is just like Regina Spektor, but the music is a bit different. The video is kind of cute too. Also, her last name isn't Swedish, in case anyone was confused.

Koop
A bit old-fashioned, but very enjoyable music. The singer in the video I linked isn't a member of Koop, in fact it's just two guys using sound samples to make the instrumental parts.

Oh hey, what's this?

Another month, another update

This update comes a bit early since May 31st is a weekend, so there's no update in the exchange today. Not much changed this month except for the Korean Won. In fact, it passed the 1000 mark this month, but my regression model has it not happening until July. I'll leave it on here to see what happens. Also, although the model predicts the Yen benchmark being met next month, the Yen has actually fallen in value the last two months, so it seems unlikely to happen.

In other news, the Mexican Peso has started to rise in value, so it now has its own benchmark.

Jun. 2008: 100 Japanese Yen > $1 US (unchanged)
Jul. 2008: 1 Swiss Franc > $1 US (unchanged)
Jul. 2008: $1 US > 1000 Korean Won (5 months sooner) already achieved
Dec. 2008: $1 Aussie > $1 US (1 month sooner)
Feb. 2009: 1 Euro > $1.75 US (unchanged)
May. 2009: 5 Swedish Kronor > $1 US (1 month sooner)
Sep. 2009: 6 Chinese Yuan > $1 US (1 month sooner)

New Benchmarks:
Jul. 2009: $1 US > 1100 Korean Won
0ct. 2009: 10 Mexican Peso > $1 US

My second quarterly report

This is the first month where I had a big scare as at the end of calculations, I had over 20,000 won missing. It took some time, but I eventually came to realize that I somehow managed to take 35,000 won worth of bus trips on a card with only 20,000 won on it. Basically meaning, I had put 20,000 on the card and forgot to record it (I alway put 20,000 won on my card when I recharge it).

Anyway, my numbers for this report have been greatly damaged by the change in exchange rate. Whereas in February, I recorded a savings of $5112.31, that is now worth only $4656.26. So I've lost $456.05 in three months. Bloomberg calls the Korean won "the world's worst-performing major currency this year".

Anyway, for my second quarter, my revenue was down slightly, $6093.65 (over 99% from my paycheck), and costs went way up to $2245.19. The reasons for this rise in costs is the fact I had to buy a new computer, which by itself cost more that what I usually spend in a month. So my savings for this quarter were only $3848.46, giving me a savings rate of about 63.16%.

My expenses break down for this quarter:
Food: 35%
Computer: 31.5%
Utilities: 15.2%
Transportation: 9.4%
Entertainment: 2.5%
Other: 6.4%

I take great pride in the fact that over the past 6 months, only 0.1% of the money I've had is unaccounted for.

Two Benchmarks Reached!

This month I was surprised by the Chinese Yuan and the Swedish Krona as they both exceeded my expectations. For the Yuan it was a photo finish, it's average exchange rate this month was 6.99969 Yuan for $1 US. Another Canadian benchmark has been removed. The exchange has been pretty level the last few months. The Korean Won continues to sadden me as it declines in value. The Korean government has been purposely lowering the value of the Won to boost exports. According to other calculations I've done, the equilibrium exchange rate should be 820 Won to $1 US.

Apr. 2008: 7 Chinese Yuan > $1 US (2 months sooner) Achieved!
Apr. 2008: 6 Swedish Kronor > $1 US (2 months sooner) Achieved!
Jun. 2008: 100 Japanese Yen > $1 US (unchanged)
Jul. 2008: 1 Swiss Franc > $1 US (1 month sooner)
Dec. 2008: $1 US > 1000 Korean Won (9 months sooner)
Jan. 2009: $1 Aussie > $1 US (1 month sooner)
Feb. 2009: 1 Euro > $1.75 US (3 months sooner)
Jun. 2009: 5 Swedish Kronor > $1 US (3 months sooner)

New Benchmarks:
Oct. 2009: 6 Chinese Yuan > $1 US

Removed Benchmark:
$1 Canadian > $1.25 US